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Under Trudeau’s system the Senate might roll over and let the Commons have its way: Hébert

It is best not to look upon Justin Trudeau’s Senate plan as a fix for the democratic and accountability deficits that undermine Parliament, for it is more likely to result in the opposite.

Installing an unaccountable meritocracy in the Senate sounds more like a prescription to circumvent Canada’s ailing parliamentary democracy than to mend it, writes Chantal H?bert. (Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

MONTREAL—If you believe that any change to the Senate is better than no change at all then Justin Trudeau’s move to cut the umbilical cord that ties the parties in the House of Commons and the members of the upper house is the surest way to obtain it.

But it is best not to look upon the Liberal leader’s plan as a fix for the democratic and accountability deficits that undermine Parliament, for it is more likely to result in the opposite.

It is hard for anyone who has spent decades covering Canada’s constitutional wars to quarrel with Trudeau’s contention that the odds of a constitutional resolution to the Senate issue are low.

On that score NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair is being disingenuous when he draws a parallel between the successful termination in the late 1990s of the religious school governance obligations the Constitution imposed on Quebec and his sought-after abolition of the Senate.

It is one thing to negotiate an amendment that calls only for the agreement of Parliament and a single province, but another to navigate past a rock of unresolved Quebec grievances to arrive at a reform that requires unanimous or quasi-unanimous provincial support.

The 32 Liberal senators who were cast out of Trudeau’s caucus at a moment’s notice on Wednesday clearly feel more adrift than free. That’s normal. In most cases their caucus ties were more an anchor than a chain.

But if Trudeau wins the next election the make-up of the Senate could change quickly.

Unless Prime Minister Stephen Harper resumes appointing senators between now and the 2015 campaign an incoming Trudeau government would have at least 16 seats to fill upon arrival.

Within months of its swearing-in, a critical mass in the Senate — a near or actual majority — would no longer belong to a party caucus.

By the end of a full Liberal mandate in 2019, three quarters of the Senate would be made up of people with no caucus affiliation. And the majority of those senators would not have known a life when they were beholden to a party in the House of Commons.

But there are significant caveats.

To be appointed to the Senate on the basis of merits other than past partisan services is no guarantee of future ethical behaviour. The Duffy saga has demonstrated as much.

Under Trudeau’s scheme an errant senator would not be accountable to any elected official and no party would have to take responsibility for his or her actions.

Trudeau says he would look to the Order of Canada selection process for inspiration for a non-partisan appointment formula. That process may be at arm’s length but it is also opaque.

Recipients of the Order of Canada are not expected to do anything in exchange for the honour except perhaps to continue to be good at what they usually do. Senators on the other hand are constitutionally mandated to look over the shoulder of the elected House of Commons and decide whether to give its work their stamp of approval.

Under the Trudeau system the Senate might just roll over and let the elected house have its way with most legislation.

If it did not, its members would presumably base their decisions on their collective view of the national interest rather than on partisan considerations. But is that more legitimate than to be guided by the platform that a party has at least run by voters in an election?

Bottom line: installing an unaccountable meritocracy in the Senate — even as it stands to enhance the credibility of a discredited institution — sounds more like a prescription to circumvent Canada’s ailing parliamentary democracy than to mend it.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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